


If You're Still Free Later

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 22:04:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14861121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: “I would kill for a cup of coffee right now,” he remarked with a casual air. “Literally.”





	If You're Still Free Later

When he promised he could get them free food after a long day of travel she had been understandably skeptical. Kakashi was an expert in dodging the bill but this was a foreign town where none of the owners would be able to track down his friends to cough up the change in his place. He might have been a dick to his friends, who he knew could always earn another dollar, but he wasn’t usually coldhearted enough to leave small business owners without their payment when he knew just how tough it could be for civilians to get by in this economy.

“Hold up here for a second,” Kakashi murmured, steering them off the main street for a moment. Sakura looked around at where he had pulled her in to.

“A dirty alley. Lovely. If you’ve been struck by the sudden urge to confess your undying love for me then I’ve got to say, you could have chosen a better spot.” She smiled at the sound of Kakashi’s startled laugh while he wriggled one hand out of its half-glove.

“Maa, save those burning passions for later when we’re alone.” Obviously grinning under his mask, he offered her what she could only tell was a wink by the minute tilt of his head when his one eye closed. Habit still led him to covering one of his eyes even now that he had both of them and so far no one had had the heart to mention it.

Sakura gave him an arch look but said nothing, just took the glove he passed to her to free his hands for a minute. Then she watched curiously as he reached down in to his thigh holster and pulled out a recently sharpened kunai, dragging it across his own exposed palm and letting the blood well up in a small pool. As soon as he had collected a good amount he smeared it generously across his own face, dabbing it in strategic places on his clothing as well.

“What are you doing?” Sakura asked, half in horror and half in exasperation.

“Getting us a free meal!”

“How the hell is this supposed to get us a free meal? They’ll chase us own of the inn before we can even order.”

“Oh ye of little faith.” Kakashi tutted at her and reached out to take his glove back. Once he’d slipped it back on to cover up the wound he’d given himself, he tugged her back out on to the street and made a straight line for the inn they intended to rent rooms from for the night.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise that horrified eyes began turning towards them almost as soon as they strolled through the door. Sakura fought the urge to cringe and forced herself to hold her chin up high as they wandered casually through the open concept dining area towards the innkeeper.

As they walked, Kakashi made a show of yawning as though the world itself were boring him.

“I would kill for a cup of coffee right now,” he remarked with a casual air. “Literally.”

Sakura bit her lip to keep from laughing at the innkeeper’s expression of absolute terror. The mug he’d been cleaning slipped from his suddenly shaking fingers and rolled away across the bar top, all unnoticed. As Kakashi approached, the man scrambled backwards and a little sideways, obviously trying to keep his distance.

“C-coffee! I can make coffee for you shinobi-san! On the house today! Please find a – a seat!”

“Oh?” Kakashi tilted his head innocently. “Are you sure?”

“Yes! Very sure!”

“Maa, how kind of you.”

Flashing his signature eye smile above the navy mask hiding his actual facial expression, Kakashi waved genially and turned around to squirrel himself away in the corner table farthest from any of the other patrons. Sakura settled herself across from him as demurely as she could. On the outside she strove to appear calm and unaffected even while on the inside she was howling with laughter. Pretty much all of the patrons were staring at them with varying degrees of terror but the two shinobi pretended not to notice, kicking up their feet after a long day of travel and releasing gusty sighs of relief.

When the innkeeper brought over two cups of coffee, the tray he carried them on was trembling so badly there was almost as much in the cups as had sloshed out of them. The moment he set it down he leapt back several feet. Then he froze in place when Sakura turned to him with a wide, friendly smile.

“Oh, I didn’t order any for myself,” she pointed out. The poor man nearly collapsed on the spot.

“Forgive me shinobi-san! If I have offered insult–!” Sakura cut him off with a wave.

“No, it’s no trouble.” Plucking the cup meant for her off the tray, she poured the remains in to the one meant for Kakashi, thereby leaving it completely full. “There we go; all fixed!”

She pushed the mug towards her friend while the innkeeper scuttled backwards, bowing every couple of steps. By the time she looked back across the table Kakashi was already done his coffee with his mask settled perfectly in place as usual. A scowl crossed her face that disappeared immediately when she heard several people around the room gasp in fright.

After a few moments of pouting – accompanied by Kakashi’s typical smug chuckle – Sakura regained the innkeeper’s attention to order them a bit of food. He ended up cooking them a full three course meal entirely on the house, eyeing them worriedly from across the room the entire time they were eating. Sakura did insist on paying for the room when they mentioned they wished to rent one, although it took a very slight look of disapproval to make the man back down and accept her money.

He apologized profusely for having only one room left when they requested two and even offered to ask one of his patrons to leave but neither Sakura nor Kakashi would hear of it. They’d had their fun and neither of them had the heart to be any crueler to the poor man. It wasn’t as though either of them had been violent or made any attempts to be even slightly intimidating yet he seemed convinced that if he didn’t treat them like royalty they might behead him in his sleep. It seemed Kakashi’s little prank had worked just a little too well.

Luckily the room was a decent size for being the last one available and the two teammates agreed that there was plenty of room for both of them to share the only bed. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time either of them had to curl themselves around another human body for warmth or comfort on a mission. Personal space was a luxury sometimes.

“So.” Kakashi tossed his worn travel pack in to the corner and flopped down across the bed. “How’s that free food treating you, Miss Non-believer?” Sakura rolled her eyes and tossed her pack at his chest. He caught it and peeked out from behind, both eyes twinkling. When he had pulled his protector up?

“We owe that innkeeper _such_ an apology.”

“It was funny though.”

“Didn’t say it wasn’t funny.” Pushing him sideways, she claimed a little bed space for herself. “Just that we owe him an apology. But we can do that after we get some sleep, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Neither of them shifted so much as a single muscle, not even trying to work themselves around in to better sleeping positions. For her part, Sakura was content to stay right where she was, one of her arms pressed gently up against Kakashi’s, enjoying the warmth of what little skin was exposed by his rolled up sleeves. Such a rare occasion could not be squandered, after all.

Her eyelids began to droop before long and Sakura realized that her body was very much prepared to fall asleep right here, draped sideways over the bed with her spine slowly arching upward and her toes slipping against the hardwood. In an effort to rouse herself for just a few moments she drew in a deep breath and released it in one great rush. Kakashi stirred next to her, turning his head to look over in her direction with the skin around his eyes crinkled in a familiar hidden smile. Would she ever stop being grateful that he had both eyes now?

“I’m too comfy to move,” he murmured. Sakura grunted her agreement.

“Or go get changed,” she added.

Kakashi leered obnoxiously. “What if I promise not to peek?”

“Ew, don’t be a pervert!” Despite her protest Sakura was forced to sit up in order to hide the blush threatening her cheeks. There was no need to advertise the fact that she wouldn’t actually mind changing in front of him if he were interested in that sort of thing. Left behind on the bed, Kakashi heaved a sigh of his own but still refused to move so much as an inch, holding his ground in the name of comfort. Sakura resisted the urge to peek down at him as she leaned across his lap to where he had shoved her pack.

She almost leapt out of her skin when hesitant fingers brushed against her bent waist. Her palm had only just closed around the strap of her bag and yet Sakura held perfectly still without retrieving it, waiting to see what her partner planned to do with those wandering fingers.

Judging by the loud clearing of his throat and the way his suddenly jerked both limbs away from her like he’d touched a live flame, she would guess that he hadn’t meant to do that at all. Probably he was pretty embarrassed right now. But she couldn’t bring herself to be mad at him for being so forward, not even a tiny bit, not when she’d woken up from way too many dreams featuring the two of them in positions very similar to the one they were in right now.

Generally those positions involved more of her body on top of his but she was working on that.

Sort of. If he would let her.

Moving her head in tiny little increments, she very slowly looked down to find that Kakashi’s visible face was a brighter shade of pink than her own hair. He looked as though he would greatly appreciate the ability to sink down in to the floor. Rather than allow him the dignity of pretending nothing happened, Sakura lifted one eyebrow and did nothing to stop the grin rapidly stretching across her lips.

“Why Kakashi,” she said, “you sneaky boy. Instead of peeking you’re stealing touches.”

“Oh kami I didn’t mean to, I swear. You know how it is; these old fingers just have a mind of their own sometimes.” He offered up a painfully awkward laugh that Sakura brushed aside like cobwebs.

“Then it’s your fingers who wanted a peek?”

It was hard not to laugh when he started spluttering indignantly but she managed, if only barely. “Uh, well, you know I didn’t say that. I mean, it’s not that you aren’t very nice. I don’t mean that in a bad way! Of course you’re very nice! No, wait, that sounds creepy. Am I creepy?”

“Kakashi!” Giggling, she let go of her pack to place her palm overtop of his mouth. “Breathe.”

“Mhmmph-mph?”

“What? Oh.” She lifted her hand again and he blinked up at her shyly.

“You’re not mad? I’ve seen you break bones when someone touches you in any way you don’t like.”

“Maybe I liked it.”

He swallowed, the movement obvious even beneath his mask. “Oh. Well. I hadn’t considered that.” Sakura nodded her head slowly and let her own fingers trail down the side of his neck until her palm rested against the wild beating of his heart. Feeling the proof of how affected he was sent a wild rush down her spine.

“So you’ve considered…other things?”

“Do we have to talk in circles?” he asked, smiling suddenly. “I get the impression here that we’ve both been tossing around the same ideas but I don’t really want either of us to get confused about this. Misunderstandings can leading to some really sticky situations.”

Laughing, Sakura let her body gradually slump down against his own until she was lying sideways across him as he lay sideways across the bed. “Good idea. I’ll start. Um, is this okay?”

“Very okay. How about this?” He lifted the hand which had brushed her waist and used it to comb his fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face.

“Yeah, that’s okay,” Sakura breathed.

“Ah. And if I took you to dinner once we were back home, that would be fine too?”

“Mhm.”

It was hard to tell if her heart or his was racing faster at the moment. Sakura could feel the smile on her face growing bigger and bigger and she didn’t care to stop it; she felt much too happy to bother with concealing her emotions like a ‘good shinobi’ should.

“One more?” Kakashi swallowed again, visibly gathering his courage. “Is, er, this okay?”

With no more warning than that he used the hand tangled in her hair to cup the back of her neck and gently guide her down, using just enough force to make it obvious that she was definitely allowed to stop whatever was happening if she so wished. Which she most definitely did not. Sakura felt her breathing stop as he led her down and oh so softly pressed their lips together.

Almost immediately it felt as though sirens were going off inside her head. This was not a drill. She was, in fact, kissing the one and only Hatake Kakashi while they lay sprawled out across a bed they were going to have to share for the night. After how many times she had pictured this kind of scenario Sakura could honestly say she hadn’t pictured it happening like this at all. She usually pictured big romantic confessions or explosions of raw lust, some kind of storybook event she could brag about to all of her friends. Not once had she guessed that it would happen for real, let alone that it would be so simple and so sweet, almost mundane. She definitely wasn’t complaining through.

One could only kiss so much through a mask, however, so it was hardly a messy make-out session such as might happen in Kakashi’s raunchy novels. After a few drawn out kisses the two of them pulled apart and Sakura mentally flailed around, trying to remember how to open her mouth and make words come out.

“Yeah. That was more than okay. We should do that again; probably all the time.”

“As often as possible,” Kakashi agreed with mock solemnity. Sakura laughed.

“Definitely.”

He tucked a few stray hairs behind her ears again. “Still feel comfortable sharing a bed tonight? I can sleep on the floor if you would rather. I can understand that this might make some things feel a bit different between us.”

“You will do no such thing.” Sakura sniffed and pushed herself up, tugging on Kakashi’s clothing until he was chuckling and scooting around to lay properly on the bed as she so obviously wanted him to. “How dare you suggest that I give up my cuddle blanket for the night? Preposterous. Now I have a proper excuse to trap you and you can be sure that I’m going to use it!”

“I don’t think I have any problems with that,” he said calmly.

Sakura wriggled the blanket out from underneath their bodies and pulled it over top of them, draping herself over Kakashi once again now that they were properly aligned with the mattress. Wrapping her legs up in his own was a special kind of delight. Laying her head down against his chest and listening to the drumming of his heart as it slowly calmed, just like her own, was more than she could have ever hoped for.

When Kakashi wrapped his arms around her and settled back in to the pillows, she smirked against the material of his shirt.

“You still have to apologize to the innkeeper tomorrow.”

“Ugh.” He groaned dramatically. “And you’re going to make me _pay_ for that free dinner, aren’t you? You know, that entirely undermines the whole idea of it being free.”

“That’s what you get for scaring the poor man.”

“Only together for two minutes and already you’re twisting my arm. Rude.”

Sakura didn’t answer, too busy glowing and trying not to burst at the seams. Together sounded good to her.


End file.
